Microsoft and EY have expanded their long-standing alliance through a joint investment of more than US $1 billion over the next five years. The initiative aims to help businesses move artificial intelligence past the experimental phase and deploy it across core corporate operations.
The strategy combines Microsoft’s engineering teams with EY industry consultants. These unified teams will build and deploy industry-specific AI solutions tailored to individual business needs. The project uses Microsoft’s specialized engineering approach to accelerate adoption across change management delivery models. Initial rollouts will target finance, tax, risk, human resources, and supply chain management within sectors like energy, financial services, consumer goods, government, and healthcare.
EY serves as the primary testing ground, or “Client Zero,” for the technology. The firm initially deployed Microsoft Copilot to 150,000 users, which yielded a 15% increase in productivity. Following these internal tests, EY is now scaling Copilot to its entire global workforce of more than 400,000 people via Microsoft 365 E7: The Frontier Suite.
Internal data from EY shows measurable operational shifts from its earlier AI deployments:
- Finance operations: Using the Microsoft Power Platform and intelligent agents reduced operational costs by 37% and cut lead times by 95%.
- Audit and assurance: EY embedded a multiagent framework across its proprietary Canvas platform, affecting 130,000 professionals handling 160,000 audit engagements.
- Tax platforms: Deploying cloud-based document intelligence tools automated data extraction, reducing manual workloads by up to 90%.
The new initiative relies on shared governance, shared commercial models, and mutual accountability between both corporations to ensure practical execution for external corporate clients.